


Any Way the Wind Blows

by stellardarlings



Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, F/M, Post-Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker Fix-It, Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-06
Updated: 2020-01-06
Packaged: 2021-02-27 14:33:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,270
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22138642
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stellardarlings/pseuds/stellardarlings
Summary: No one's ever really gone.
Relationships: Kylo Ren/Rey, Rey/Ben Solo, Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Comments: 48
Kudos: 239





	Any Way the Wind Blows

**Author's Note:**

> The tags say it all. The title comes from Hadestown. Rey is Orpheus in this scenario.
> 
> This is largely prompted by fandom metas and theories since the movie came out and we all felt the urge to try and fix that mess. 
> 
> My first time writing in this fandom but I do have other ideas...if not enough time to write all of them. Come find me on [Tumblr](https://cellar-darlings.tumblr.com/) where I've set up a new Reylo-specific identity due to general fandom fuckery.
> 
> Thanks to my beta, who doesn't want to be named for the same reasons.

Rey doesn’t cry in front of other people.

It’s an old habit, a relic of her time on Jakku. There, crying was a sign of weakness and would only lead to worse. She thought she’d shed the habit when she gained people she trusted to look out for her. It had never been a problem to cry in front of Finn, or Rose, or even…

Ben. But Ben is gone now. Her tears are for him, and she can’t share them with anyone.

She’s too shocked on Exegol to cry, grasping at the patch of air his body faded away from. Too stunned to believe it’s real, until the silence around her settles in too long and she realizes she really is all alone. It’s quiet and cold and there isn’t another soul left living on this planet. The Force assures her of that much.

She returns to the X-Wing, dazed, and only when she has programmed a path back to Ajan Kloss does reality begin to settle in. The increasing distance from the pitted, shrouded surface of the planet she is leaving behind causes a knot of panic to swell in her chest, and without realizing it, she’s reaching down the bond to feel his comforting presence. Even when she was trying to shut him out, throwing up walls to stop the connection opening up, she could always feel him, his energy a hot, solid thrum that lets her know she’s not alone. Never alone.

There’s only a void. She’s alone now.

In the darkness of space, Rey curls into a ball on the floor of the X-Wing, trying to remember how to breathe through the pain. The panic has become a hard lump in her throat, a hot slide of tears down her face, and heavy, hiccuping breaths she has to choke her way through. She cries silently, because it’s the only way she’s ever known, but his name is on her lips.

She’s only just discovering that despite everything, she always saw her future intertwining with Ben’s, somehow. Even when she’d been trying to kill him, she’d never really expected to succeed. She’d never wanted him dead—she’d only wanted Ben to cast aside the shell of Kylo Ren and be the man she knew he was inside. Every Force vision, every tug at the bond, had only convinced her deep down that, one way or another, they would forever be in each other’s orbits.

So how can she now face a future without him?

It feels like a betrayal by the Force itself. There’s no balance to things if she is all that’s left. The Skywalker line, that brilliant streak of hope within the galaxy, has burned out—she felt Leia’s death echoing across the stars all the way to Kef Bir. Now all they have is Rey. She may not be a nobody anymore, she may be an heir to something, but it’s an inheritance she’s already cut out of herself and cauterized. She’s been used by the Force, much like Ben, hollowed out and cast aside. Whatever tentative hopes she’d had about family died on Exegol.

When the X-Wing begins its approach to Ajan Kloss, she takes the time to wipe all evidence of her tears away, to paste a mask of serenity in their place. She can try to explain to them what Ben did, in the end, but she has no faith that she can make people understand. Finn and Rose, perhaps, with enough time and the right words, but not the Resistance as a whole. His death will only be celebrated. She can’t blame them given what they’ve witnessed—Starkiller, D’Qar, Crait, and beyond—and to keep questions at bay, to keep her mask in place, she’ll need to join them. By the time she’s maneuvered the X-Wing onto the jungle floor, she’s even managed to force a smile.

This planet feels different too, and it takes her a moment to register that Ben isn’t the only presence missing in the Force. Leia’s gone and it’s more palpable in a place she was so present within. That almost causes Rey’s knees to buckle…too much loss, today…but Finn has her in such a solid hug that she stays upright.

She gets through it all, somehow. 

They lost other people in the final battle, but also gained new friends. Couples embrace: Commander D’Acy and Lieutenant Tyce turn a heated kiss into a spontaneous proposal. Poe is making eyes at one of the spice runners from Kijimi, who has the sense to cut him down, though Rey doubts that will be the end of it. Rose breathlessly confesses that Finn kissed her when he landed. People are finally looking forward to a future, one they dared not commit to previously. 

Rey finds herself tagging along with Finn as he shows the riders from Kef Bir around the base. The group starts forming a rudimentary plan to start looking for the families of the children stolen to become Stormtroopers. Lando’s idea, but Finn has taken to it with great enthusiasm. There are still Stormtroopers around the galaxy waiting to be stood down, and not enough prisons to hold them in, let alone homes for them to go to. Words like deprogramming and rehabilitation buzz around her. 

There’s a memorial service planned for when the sun sets, candles and lanterns lit against the night sky, names of the missing and fallen read by the remaining commanders. People Rey knew and liked. No tears come for them, and she’s not trying to hold them at bay. She just thinks she doesn’t have any tears left, even as she feels the corners of her lips dragged down by her sadness. There are plenty of tears being shed around her, and she offers comfort with platitudes as empty as her smile.

Finally, she is able to beg a retreat to the Falcon. She looks like hell, covered in the grime of Exegol, and she should feel battered and bruised. That’s why everybody is so willing to let her escape the festivities, which look like they will continue long into the night. They all assume she’s feeling the effects of some big damn heroics and needs to recover from them. The truth is, she is physically fine. Ben healed every ailment when he poured his life force into her. The only thing wrong with her is exhaustion, and she doesn’t think it’s something sleep will be able to fix.

She gives it a try anyway.

* * *

The emptiness inside her doesn’t abate as the days pass, but she tries to pretend it away.

All Rey had ever wanted was to have people around her who care about her. She has that with the Resistance, and she knew that for a long time. Finn is always eager for her presence, even if he and Rose are now joined at the hip, casually emerging from Finn’s quarters together on a morning like it’s nothing. No, not like it’s nothing—like it’s natural.

Rey knows precious little about what happens when two people share a bed. More than sleeping, and she saw the crude process in the flesh growing up on Jakku, but she understands that for people who are in love there’s more to it. She’s not sure how and she was never much interested. Only when she’d allowed her daydreams to drift towards Ben, the memory of his fingers touching hers causing an indescribable bloom of heat in her belly, and even then her imagination had faltered, settling for a warm body wrapped around hers in the night. Now she packs those daydreams away, acknowledging she’ll never understand what it’s all about.

She’s not alone, and that’s what important. Ajan Kloss still bustles with life, even if many of the Resistance fighters have immediately departed for their homeworlds, ready to ensure whatever pockets of tyranny may be left of the First Order are chased away and destroyed. But the Resistance command remains. 

There’s nobody left with Leia’s vision for what will fill the power vacuum left behind by the First Order. Rey avoids the perpetual meetings, knowing eyes will turn to her expectantly. She’s no leader. She’s barely a hero.

And she’s not exactly communing with the Force lately. She’s cut it off, tied a tourniquet around the bleeding stump of her bond with Ben. Without that, she’s no Jedi. Even with the Force, she has no wisdom to offer them.

She’s startled the morning she stumbles out of her bunk on the Falcon, out into the jungle, to find the usual throng of people has halved. Rose is still there, waiting in their usual spot with two canteens of caf, but there’s none of the usual bustle around them.

“Where is everyone?” Rey asks, taking her canteen and settling in beside her friend.

“You haven’t heard? Poe’s gone to Coruscant. They’re getting representatives from all the Core Worlds, and the ones who were in the New Republic, to try and thrash out where we go from here.”

“That sounds like it’s going to take ages.”

“It will.” Rose looks at her with…maybe not pity, but a softness that suggests Rey’s mask hasn’t been as solid as she hoped. “He’s not coming back.”

“Oh.”

They weren’t exactly friends, her and Poe. Got on each enough other’s last nerves often enough. But he’d not even said goodbye to her, and that stings.

“Lando just got back from the Wobani system with Jannah. They think they’ve found her family—maybe many families who had their children stolen by the First Order.”

“Finn?” Rey questions, dropping her voice low.

“Maybe. We’re heading out there ourselves the day after tomorrow.”

“You are coming back?” Rey finds herself asking sharply.

“Of course,” Rose replies. “But Rey—you know nobody’s staying here long term, right? Sooner or later this place is going to empty out entirely.”

Somewhere inside, Rey did know that. She just hadn’t made any plans for where to go next.

“You should come with us,” Rose says with a warm smile. “You’ll be a big help with the search.”

Rey shakes a head. “Something tells me Finn will be able to do that better than me right now.”

Along the way, she’s figured out Finn’s secret. He’s Force sensitive. She’s happy for him, she really is, but she also hasn’t told him she knows. If she did, he’d want her to train him, and that’s not something she’s capable of right now. Finn’s a clever guy. He has solid instincts. Besides, the war is over. He’ll figure it out like she did, and she can always send him the copies of the Jedi texts for a little light reading. They’re all backed up by R2, translations into Basic provided courtesy of Threepio and Beaumont, who appears to have disappeared off world with Poe.

Finn at least comes to say goodbye before he goes, crushing her in a boisterous hug and promising he won’t be gone long. Then Rey is left in the jungle. Her, Chewie, a handful of droids, and some of the tribe from Kef Bir. 

Now she can appreciate the silence even more. Without the Force it’s like her senses have been dimmed, turned down a fraction so nothing is quite as loud or vivid. It makes the emptiness easier to bear. Maybe. The alternative is opening herself up to visitors, and she isn’t ready to face anybody yet. Not Luke, not Leia. Definitely not…

Not Ben. Because if he appears to her that way, it’ll become true. She isn’t ready for that.

It also leaves her with nothing to do except flick through the Jedi texts, because the alternative is coming up with a plan for the future that doesn’t involve trailing around after Finn for the rest of her life.

It’s actually quite nice to have Threepio read the texts out loud to her as she wanders around the jungle, trying to keep herself in physical shape. Sometimes she takes an Orbak or two out for a walk with them. The texts are full of theorems, stupid puzzles she’s supposed to figure out, but she skips past them to Threepio’s continued upset. Instead, she presses him to rattle on about lightsaber lore and ridiculous stories about the beginning of time. 

“How can all of these stories be true?” she asks as they trail up the side of a hill. She’s looking for a vantage point to look across the forest. The trees are starting to feel oppressive now, their canopy only revealing the sky in snatches, and Rey wants to be above it all. “They contradict each other.”

“If I may,” Threepio ventures, “sometimes mythology serves more of an allegorical than a factual purpose…”

She tunes him out until he switches back to lightsabers, talking about old ways of honoring fallen Jedi and repairing damaged hilts.

“And thus even a corrupted kyber crystal can be healed with purity of spirit, until it shines radiant once more—”

Rey pauses halfway up the tree she’s climbing. “Wait, what did you say?”

* * *

When they get back to the camp, she gathers the last of the visitors from Kef Bir. “Does anybody want a ride home?”

She has ulterior motives, but nobody cares about that. She’s got a couple of riders with her but no space for the Orbak, who only travel well on craft with proper stabling space on them, and they’ve arranged for them to follow when it can be arranged. Rey drops the riders on the same ridge they first met and borrows the skiff, riding across a much calmer sea to the last place she saw Kylo Ren.

She’s not entirely sure why she comes here to look for the saber. He never told her what happened to it—never spoke to her when they met again after their fight here. But he showed up to Exegol without a weapon or any vestige of his alter ego, so something—instinct, her understanding of _him_ —tells her he left it all behind here.

It’s also the last place she felt Leia, and she fears that as she drops her shield on the shelf of wreckage she balances upon, there will be a crowd ready to greet her. Instead, the Force returns to her in a rush, pleasant and bright even if that persistent ache under her ribcage blossoms into something sharper.

She needs that feeling. Digs into it, remembering his essence as she searches through the wreckage with her mind. She’s called enough sabers to her now that she’s familiar with the pointed glitter of kyber in the Force. It takes time to find it, but only because its signature is dulled, and when she realizes why it’s obvious: it’s down in the depths, under the wall of water.

The water is more resistant than air, unwilling to part with its treasure, and she is sweating by the time the saber spins into her outstretched hand. She cuts herself off from the Force instantly, turning tail back to the skiff until she is safely on the Falcon, speeding away to the jungle. Suddenly she wants to be under the blanket of the forest canopy again, where she can hide away from the lure of the Force.

* * *

It takes longer than she hoped to fix the kyber. There’s no way of doing it without opening herself up the Force on a more permanent basis, but the trees remain barren of ghosts even when she does. She meditates, trying to get back into the habit of emptying her mind and letting the Force flow through her like air. She can’t rush this—not if she wants “purity of spirit”, but _kriff_ this sounded easier than it really is. She’d done this with the other saber, the one broken on the Finalizer, but this is something else entirely, the crystal deliberately rendered unstable. The kyber is a splintered edge in the Force, a fissure with frosted teeth she will cut herself on if she’s not careful. She can feel that it wants to be whole, the sharp crystalline structure wanting to be smooth and complete, but the raw edges feel too much like…

Like the wound in her heart where the bond should be.

Finn and Rose return with the contingent from Wobani. They’ve also brought BB-8 back with them, picking him up from Coruscant after dropping in to visit Poe.

“Poe hates diplomacy,” Rose says. 

“You surprise me,” Rey replies drily. She’s not sure she’s met anyone less suited to it, except for perhaps herself, or…the previous Supreme Leader. He’d definitely not had the patience for politics.

“He’s doing his best to pass it off to somebody else, but nobody wants to take charge. Not like Leia would’ve done.”

If that’s a hint, Rey ignores it. 

“People respect Lando,” she points out. 

“His retirement is not working out like he hoped,” Rose acknowledges with a grin.

Something about the comforting presence of her friends—watching Rose try to ride an Orbak, or Finn lose at Dejarik to Chewie—lifts her spirits. She knows she won’t be around them forever, or even much longer, but whatever it is helps her empty her mind when she meditates. The knot of pain is still there, but her laughter is an anesthetic. To her surprise, one foggy morning, the kyber crystal knits itself back together with only the lightest of guidance from her. As if it just _wanted_ to.

She slips it into the new hilt she’s built for herself, something that fits her hand and feels more pleasant than Kylo’s old one. When she lights it, the blade is a soft, golden yellow. A shaft of sunlight and, according to Threepio, a sign of balanced knowledge of the Force.

She knows what to do next.

* * *

Tatooine is so much like Jakku that she almost can’t land her shuttle. She’ll go anywhere, except back to Jakku itself, if she doesn’t have to trudge her way across white-hot sand.

And trudge she does. The Lars homestead is in the middle of nowhere. Rey has forgotten what it’s like to make a journey like this under blistering sunlight, and she can hear poor BB-8’s cooling systems desperately whirring away at full speed.

The house itself is mostly under sand, and while she should be surprised nobody ever moved into it—that’s how things always worked on Jakku—there’s an unsettling atmosphere to the place. Too many ghosts, and maybe not the Force kind.

She digs, down into where the sand is cool, and places the two sabers side by side. She’s not sure if this is the best place for them, but where else could she take them? Not back to Ahch-To, that miserable spit of salt-flecked rock. Alderaan is gone. Rey doesn’t know enough about the Skywalker twins to separate the legends from the truth, to figure out if there is anywhere else in the galaxy important to them. At least here, nobody is ever going to stumble across the sabers in their unmarked shrine. They’ll be put to rest, Anakin Skywalker’s blade no longer an heirloom to be passed around depicting who is due to save the galaxy next.

Rey covers the sabers over until the sand looks undisturbed and rises to her feet. She opens herself up the Force again, quieting her mind, and this time, they’re with her.

Luke and Leia smile down at her, almost a mirage quivering in the hot air. They are both draped in white and look younger than she ever knew them in life.

They are alone.

“Ben?” she asks, her throat cracking with panic. BB-8 beeps at her in confusion, wondering who she’s talking to.

Leia frowns, shakes her head, but doesn’t speak. They flicker out of view as her concentration lapses, and she stumbles away, blindly setting out into the desert until BB-8 gets in front of her, pointing out they’re going the wrong way. She lets him lead her back to the Falcon, but she’s barely aware of the journey.

Ben isn’t a Force ghost. He’s just—gone. Not one with the Force. He’s faded out of existence forever.

It was one thing to face life without him, having always expected him to be there. It’s another to realize that even at the end, even if she learns the way to become one with the Force herself, she will never see him again. Never be with him again. Their bond, for all it was meant to represent, was so easily severed. She’s been cut loose, left to drift alone.

She’s on her knees, trailing far behind the droid who hasn’t noticed the growing distance between them. She can barely breathe. The space beneath her ribs aches too much to draw in oxygen. 

“Was that too much to ask?” she asks of nobody and nothing. A family. That’s all she’d ever wanted. _Why have you left me on my own? Why?_

Nobody answers her.

If it weren’t for BB-8, she’d keep walking through the sands for the rest of her days, returning to the solitude she’d once believed her lot in life. Instead, she must take the little droid back to what remains of the Resistance, and contemplate eternity without Ben.

* * *

She almost launches Ben’s saber into hyperspace, but it’s the only thing of his she has even with the alterations she’s made to it. Possibly the only remnant of him left in the entire galaxy.

She’s got a bone to pick with the Force, her resolve hardening with every passing day. Finn keeps hinting at her training him, and she’s running out of ways to distract him. Rey is _done_. The Force got whatever it needed from her, binding her to a man—a companion—it would never let her keep, and if she had a destiny it seems fulfilled. 

She understands Luke a little better now. She understands what it feels like to turn your back on something which once felt so vital, so right. He’d done the Force’s bidding too, only to see his attempts at building a life after the war turned upside down. They’d both tried so hard to save Ben and in the end, the Force had swallowed him whole once its machinations were over anyway. Luke was right. The Jedi did need to be left to fade out of existence.

And she’s going to help them along.

The texts are in R2’s data banks and she’s tempted to wipe them completely, but at the last minute she leaves instructions with Threepio to get Finn to listen to him reading them: meditations and basic techniques, if nothing else. It’s the only teaching she can offer him, and she’s not churlish enough to leave him with no way of learning about this side of himself. 

The only flaw in her plan is that she needs a co-pilot to Ahch-To, but Chewie’s ready for another journey and he doesn’t ask many questions. So long as they take plenty of food with them, he doesn’t mind going back there. He’s hoping to return the nesting Porgs in the Falcon to their original habitat. 

The island looks much the same as it always did. The sun never seems to fully shine here, leaving it wrapped in a cloak of grey mist and sea-spray. The opposite of the burning heat of the desert, but not in a pleasant way. She’d almost forgotten how the wind whips through her bones until she’s out in it, staring up at the jagged spires of rock and the many stairs that lead to the temple tree.

The caretakers are wary of her. Rey can’t really blame them—every time she comes to this island she manages to destroy something. Even though her last visit was fleeting thanks to Luke’s intervention, the incinerated carcass of the Ben’s TIE fighter lies near the Falcon’s landing place, a fresh blot on the landscape. Chewie does ask questions about this, but Rey pretends not to have answers. 

She wraps an extra cloak around herself before setting out up all those stairs, her staff at her back and the texts in her satchel. Her saber rests at her hip, and she has one final act planned for it before she leaves it to rest on this forsaken spit of rock. 

She passes through the small plateau where the stone huts lie. The shattered remains of the one she used is still broken apart, masonry sprayed across the path. Either the nuns don’t have the skills to rebuild one destroyed so completely, or they’ve decided not to bother. It’s a remnant of a pivotal moment in her life, a fork in the road that ultimately led her here alone.

To Rey, Ahch-To has always felt like a waste of time. She came here and learned nothing of any great importance. Now she sees that’s not true. In that hut, she opened herself to Ben and the connection between them. She saw, however briefly, what lay at the heart of him. He told her his story, and she gave hers in return, and they saw within each other the deep well of loneliness they both carried reflected like a mirror. It was the first time she’d ever met somebody who understand how isolated she was, how desperately she wanted to belong to somebody, something. If they’d had time, if they’d been given the chance to really explore what that meant—not in the midst of a battle, or at the heart of First Order territory—without interruption, who knows what might have unfolded instead?

When their fingers touched, Rey had found Ben Solo tucked inside the mantle of Kylo Ren, a scared, tender boy peering out at a kindred spirit. She could have coaxed him out if she’d had chance. Luke had prevented that, ensuring his nephew remained buried away, adding more shovels of earth to the ones he’d heaped on years before. Instead, that boy only resurfaced long enough to run into a new battle, save her, and die.

She makes the rest of the climb in tears, her anger kindled anew, fingers curled eagerly around her saber hilt. She’s ready to light it and destroy what this island stands for.

But when she reaches the tree, it’s a withered husk, blackened chunks of wood scattered around the split open trunk. It has already burned and been left to rot.

At least the caretakers can’t blame her for this one.

Her screams of frustration echo around the island, sending the closest Porgs into startled flight. 

If the tree is gone, she’ll have to find a new target. She climbs even higher, to the cliff top cave where Luke once taught her the most basic tenets of the Force.

Dusk is already settling over the island, and she lights her saber as she steps inside the temple to provide some light. There’s nothing in here that she can really burn, since all that remains is formed from rock. The only sign that this space has any special meaning to the Jedi is the pattern in the floor, the stone mosaic which depicts a seated figure, half light and half dark.

Is that what the bond between she and Ben was supposed to be? A balance between the two sides of the Force, the shades of gray merging in the middle into one being?

Rey screams again, bringing her saber arcing down. Whirls, slicing through the air with no elegance or purpose, aiming down and down and _down_. Chips of stone go flying, but so does the saber, skittering out of her hand across the ground. Instead she pulls the staff from where it hangs at her back, smacking it down against the stone, again and again until she hears the metal creak. The mosaic is ruined, a fissure opening down the middle of the symbol.

Satisfied—or as satisfied as she can be—she retrieves her saber and steps out onto the ledge overlooking the sea. Her anger still ripples through her, and Luke’s voice echoes in her mind. Not his ghost, but a memory. His concern that she’d gone straight for the darkness underneath the island.

He’d not told her the full truth, despite knowing it. Neither had Leia. Instead of giving her what she _needed_ to know, to protect herself, to protect everyone, they’d kept such a vital part of her hidden until she was forced to confront it without any chance to prepare.

Well, she could be angry, and it wasn’t anything to do with her blood. It wasn’t darkness taking root in her. She rejected that side of the Force too, and she’d destroy that if she had to.

She takes off running, back down the steps, all the way to where the blowhole into the cave awaits. She drops her cloak, staff, satchel on the dry ground—not because she doesn’t want the texts to get wet, but because she wants them to _burn_. Then she approaches the edge, the ring of black, acrid seaweed, and jumps in.

The water is no less of a shock to the system than the first time and she surfaces spluttering, buoyed by her rage. Scrambling onto the shallow rocks at the edge of the water, bringing her saber to life once more, though it’s less like sunlight down here and more sickly, a cold yellow that doesn’t shine bright enough. The mirror of ice is in front of her, and she raises the blade to hack away at that too.

A shadow passes behind it.

For the second time, she drops the saber. 

She’d forgotten the details of when she’d come down here the first time, in light of everything that came after. How when she’d begged the cave to show her what she needed—how she belonged, who she was—that she’d thought it was going to reveal the faces of her parents. Instead their outlines had merged into one solid form, broader and taller than Rey. Her heart had caught in her throat as she recognized that silhouette—until it stepped closer to become only herself.

But for a moment, she’d believed the mirror was going to show her Ben.

The shadow she’d just seen. That was Ben too. Not her own reflection. 

She lifts a hand up, tentatively. Rests her fingertips against the ice like she’d done during her first visit. Waits.

She doesn’t see anything, not even her reflection. It’s a wall of blackness, shiny as glass but opaque. It will only reveal its secrets on its own terms.

Rey waits. She can be patient. If he is here—if he is behind the mirror—she can wait forever.

She doesn’t need to. There is warmth. The same warmth she’d felt in the hut on the surface, a brush of fingertips against her own. The bright warmth of another mind, another soul, brushing against hers.

“Ben!”

He’s gone again.

_“Ben!”_

* * *

She’s built a fire in Luke’s old hut, and Chewie is roasting some meat for their dinner. She’d had to leave the cave when the cold started to make her bones rattle, her teeth chattering together until she knew if she didn’t seek heat she’d never make it out of there. Plus, there’d be a whisper at the edge of her mind; tendrils of the dark reaching out to her the longer she stayed put. Rey refused to let the Force win, so she’d climbed her way out and tried to come up with a new plan.

Ben was there, behind the mirror. She was absolutely sure of it. She just needs to find a way to get him out.

The texts are the obvious choice. There’s stuff in here she’s ignored before because it seemed ridiculous. Those theorems Threepio delighted over and all the times she’d tuned him out earlier, but which made Rey’s brain ache. The Netherworld of Unbeing or whatever it was called. A path between all worlds using the Force, something nobody had actually been able to achieve despite generations of Jedi—and Sith—working on accomplishing it.

Ben had faded before her eyes. If he hadn’t been in a solid form, then maybe he’d been able to find that path and get out of Exegol. It seems even more likely when she notices the addition made by a later Jedi master, a note connecting Exegol and Ahch-To. Planets of the Unknown Regions. She has to use her data pad to try and translate the accompanying scrawl into Basic, but this isn’t so old that she needs a scholar’s help. 

_“The Chain Worlds Theorem suggests some planets, if not all, are connected in the Force. For some the barriers between the material plane of existence and the immaterial plane of the Force are thinner, and these planets were long settled by Force users attempting to study its deepest secrets. Many of these worlds have been lost to maps, though their names remain known…”_

She’s convinced of it now. Ben is here, trapped behind the mirror. Caught between worlds and it’s up to her to free him. If the bond between them can create life itself, then it only makes sense he couldn’t pass into death without her. Instead, he’s in this inbetween place, the one she stepped into when she came to Ahch-To the first time.

She waits until Chewie is asleep, the campfire dulled down to embers, before she sets off into the night again. She takes less with her this time, abandoning her cloak by the entrance to dry herself with when she emerges. Down she goes, braced against the sharp chill, dragging herself onto the rocks with nervous excitement.

There’s no plan, only the knowledge that she’ll need to rely on the Force to help her in this—and isn’t that an irony, given her original purpose here on Ahch-To? She closes her eyes, focusing on her breathing, that stuttering tattoo that sounds like two heartbeats. 

“Be with me,” she murmurs. A plea. A chant. Raises her hand to the mirror and waits.

There’s no answering warmth. But there is a fresh chill, water lapping around her ankles. She opens her eyes, startled out of her reverie. The tide is coming into the cave. To bring Ben back, she must act quickly.

Why can’t she feel him this time?

Now she remembers again. Luke telling her that down here represented the darkness. 

What if...what if this isn’t really him? What if whatever she needs to do means she has to succumb to the darkness herself? A Sith ritual, not Jedi, and the man she brings back won’t be Ben at all. Not _her_ Ben, but the mask he wore to keep the light out?

She doesn’t care. She doesn’t. Rey _needs_ him, and if she gets Kylo stepping through the mirror, well, she can unearth Ben from inside him again, even if she has to start at the very beginning. Dealing with the creature who’d stalked her on Takodana is better than being alone forever.

_Is it?_

The water is up to her knees now.

She deserves this. The Force owes her.

She closes her eyes once more, shrinking her focus down to the place inside her where the bond begins and ends. There is life pulsing there. It’s not just her imagination. The hand on the mirror has grown cold and numb against the ice, so she raises the other one as well. Stepping close enough that if it weren’t keeping her out, she’d be able to step through.

“Please, Ben.”

The rising water, already up to her waist, has an answering effect on her pulse. She’s not much of a swimmer, and the water is frigid. Too long and she’ll either freeze or drown. There are bones down there, she’s seen them as she plummets in the cave, skulls and spines, human and alien alike. Is that to be her fate?

_“I need you.”_

It’s the quaver of desperation that tells her where she’s going wrong. This isn’t—can’t be—about what she needs. Not if that undoes what Ben sacrificed for her. To bring him back as some broken shell, full of dark energy, would be a betrayal of what he felt for her.

She can’t feel him. The certainty of him being down here ebbs away. It’s a Sith trick, luring her to her death with what she wants most. Of course the Force would never reward someone for such a selfish impulse. 

If he isn’t here, she has to let him go.

And if he is here, maybe she has to let him go anyway. If she loves him—and she does, oh she does _so much_ —then she has to face the possibility that her loneliness is less important than dragging him back through such twisted means.

The water is at her shoulders, both hands blue and numb, when she makes the decision to step away. Immediately she realizes that she left it too long.

She can’t swim like this. Her body won’t respond anymore, the sheer weight of all the water pinning her close to the mirror wall. Nor can she take a breath deep enough to scream, as if anybody would come running for her.

She lets out a silent sob, leaning against the mirror in defeat, eyes pinned shut and waiting for the cold to take her. She hears it’s a gentle death, as they go, and it won’t take long. 

There’s sudden warmth around her, and she’s heard about this too, about the tricks the mind plays close to the end. She tries to concentrate on the Force, keeping herself open to it, hoping that when she goes, she can at least find her way back to Ben that way.

Is it her imagination, or can she feel him on the other end of their bond? Almost like her lungs are twice as full of breath as they ordinarily would be, her heart beating a double rhythm, the faintest of echoes. 

“Stay with me sweetheart.” The voice in her ear is soft and deep. She burrows into the warmth, unsure if she’s already slipped over the threshold. But no, she can still hear the way sounds resonate around the cave, the echoing of the water. Her face dips under, but something is holding her solid. She grips tight, as best she can, as instructed.

The next few moments are confusing. Water all around her, head dipping under once or twice. She swallows water, inhaling icy lungfuls of it, until the shock of air leaves her gasping and retching. She’s moving, plummeting except…up? Then an abrupt landing, like she’s been tossed down onto the earth.

She blinks open her eyes, thinking if that was death, it wasn’t so bad. At least it was over quickly.

Only—she is under the stars, the cold taking a strange turn, getting fiercer now. Some parts of her are warmer than the rest, and it burns to breathe. 

“Rey?”

She turns her head towards the voice, only an inch or two. It’s all she can manage.

She’s lying on solid ground rather than floating, and she isn’t alone. No, there’s an expanse of skin pressed against hers, another pair of teeth chattering behind a full, sullen mouth.

If this is death, it’s not bad at all.

“Rey, we need to find warmth, sweetheart. You’re half frozen and I’m—”

She meets guileless brown eyes and realizes this isn’t death at all. “Ben?” she croaks, propping herself up on one elbow. It hurts, and that’s how she knows it’s real. _“Ben!”_

They’re on the rock next to the gaping hole into the cave, and she is sprawled across him. Somehow he’s got them out of the water. Since she’s already in his arms, all she has to do is sort of…collapse into him, pressing herself as tightly as she can, peppering kisses all over his skin, working her way up from his neck until she can reach his mouth. He responds eagerly, a tentative hand pressing down against her neck to keep her close. But he’s right, her teeth are chattering too. She’s soaking wet and he’s…

Well, he’s completely naked.

The realization has her screwing her eyes shut tight and her brain filling with white noise. Whatever she’d anticipated, it wasn’t this.

“There’s a—a cloak,” she whispers into the crook of his neck, and they manage to untangle themselves long enough for Ben to find it. 

He clears his throat when it’s safe for her to open her eyes.

“Fire?”

“Further up,” she replies, and they set off back across the island on unsteady feet, fingers never quite unlacing from each other.

The caretakers seemed to have sensed that _something_ has happened here this evening, because they’re outside of their village eyeballing the path as Rey and Ben pass by. None of them tut at the sight of Ben with the cloak wrapped around his waist, the pale expanse of his chest and back exposed to them, but Rey can feel how much they want to.

She’s looking anywhere but at his bare skin.

Chewie has disappeared to sleep in the Falcon when they reach the fire, and between them they have it stoked up and roaring in minutes. She should go and find dry clothes and blankets, but instead they sink onto the ground beside the fire, pressed up against each other.

“What do you remember?” Rey asks him in a whisper.

He breaks her gaze, the faintest flush grazing his cheeks. His hair, always tousled, is drying so quickly that it’s almost fluffy. She wants to touch it, badly, but that still feels too forward.

“You kissed me,” he murmurs back. “Then…” He frowns, shrugs. “I was pulled away, I think. Waiting for you. I knew you’d come.”

He doesn’t seem to have the same reservations about touching her, tugging her hair loose of its bindings so it can dry properly.

“Was I gone long?”

“It’s been months,” she confesses, her voice cracking. 

“It didn’t feel that long for me.” He tips her face up to his, running a soothing thumb down her cheek. “I never intended to leave you.”

“I know.”

His eyes are so warm, his face so different to all the times she’d ever seen him. All except those last moments on Exegol. There’s a permanent smile tugging at his mouth, replacing Kylo’s scowl. Even his voice seems softer to her.

“How did you find me?”

“Chance,” she replies, but then she’s compelled to recount the entirety of it to him. Every last, miserable moment without him, and he holds her when she cries, rocking her gently against him.

“The World Between Worlds,” he tells her at the end of it. “I remember reading about it too. That’s where I went to wait for you. You’re right, I think—I was tethered to you by the bond between us.”

“I thought I was going to die,” she confesses.

That brings a momentary frown to his features, and her fingers find his skin, not liking the loss of his smile. “No. That I would never have allowed,” he says. 

“I don’t even know how it worked, in the end.”

“The bond creates life,” Ben reminds her. “We were close enough together, even in the two worlds. I think maybe when our reflections met, it was enough to lead me back to you.” He presses a kiss against her temple. “Thank you.”

They are dry, the danger staved off, but they can’t stay out here all night. Dawn is already breaking out at sea and they need to rest before they can contemplate where they go from here.

To get back to the Falcon they have to pass by the remains of his TIE fighter, and he raises an eyebrow as they pass by. 

“I wasn’t planning on leaving when I got here after Kef Bir,” she explains sheepishly, though she doesn’t elaborate about how Luke gave her the push she needed to face the final battle. 

She tugs Ben’s hand to keep going, but he pauses, eyeing the ruined cockpit in contemplation. His lips brush her forehead before he dips inside, and she hisses at him to be careful.

He’s only gone for a moment before he emerges with something hanging from his fingers. She barely recognizes what it is until he rubs the soot off on the cloak, ochre emerging from underneath the black. A string of beads—and now she gets it, even if it’s a miracle they survived the fire.

Her necklace from Pasaana. The one he’d ripped from around her neck.

He holds it out to her with both hands. “I always meant to give this back to you.”

She can barely meet his eyes, remembering what the necklace had symbolized. In the midst of the festival, with all the fun around them, it hadn’t been important, but here, coming from him, it’s different. She’d understood, perhaps better than any of them, what the point of the necklace was, what the Aki-Aki were celebrating . Not just fertility, but family, ancestors and children alike, community and a sense of belonging that they rightly treasured and honored. Her heart had ached to see the children and to be surrounded by this web of people who cared for each other and understand its importance enough to commemorate it as they did.

The look in his eyes tells her that Ben understands, has picked this all up from her thoughts. She meets his gaze and steps closer, dips her head so he can slip the beads over and let them rest around her neck. Even if it’s ridiculous that she still can’t bring herself to look at all the skin he’s displaying while he does so.

This feels like it’s own ritual. An offering and acceptance. A question, an answer, and a promise.

They creep into the Falcon with hands still clasped, retrieving clean clothes for both of them. Rey’s are her own, Ben’s are probably his father’s, left in a never-emptied drawer. He looks completely different in the soft gray shirt—younger, looser, though there’s a pinched edge to his expression that reminds her this was his father’s ship. He hasn’t been on it in years, and he’ll never step on it with either parent again.

She leads him to her bunk, drawing the blankets back, and his hands go around her waist, nearly spanning her from hip to hip. 

“You stole my old bunk,” he tells her, and though he’s smiled before, this is the first time she’s seen his face slanted into a teasing grin. 

“I’m giving it back, aren’t I?” she replies, even as she sets herself down on the mattress. “Even if you do have to share it now.”

“Rey—” His eyes are wide.

“Just to sleep,” she says, tugging him down with her. “I’m not letting you go again.”

He doesn’t resist her after that, even if it’s a tight squeeze with the both of them. Rey’s not sure how he’s meant to fit in a bunk on his own, though if he hasn’t slept in it since he was a boy… With a lot of awkward shifting and placement of limbs they manage to arrange themselves on their sides. Ben is at her back and she is snuggled in his arms. She’s never slept in close proximity to anyone like this before, and isn’t sure she will be able to actually sleep, not with him so _warm_ , his breath stirring her hair, his breath and pulse shuddering through him into her—

It’s morning and Chewie is standing over them, yelling.

“It’s okay, Chewie!” she says, instantly on the alert despite being startled awake. Her fingers itch for a weapon and she tries to make herself as large as she can, like she can somehow mask Ben’s presence. “It’s only Ben, I brought him back.”

Her attempt at being casual doesn’t seem to calm him down any. Nor does Ben’s little wave and “Hi, Chewie. Good to see you too.”

But at least Chewie doesn’t attack, walking away after they try to explain, complaining about the Force springing surprises on him.

Rey doesn’t want to move. Ben’s hand is curled around her hip again, practically swallowing her abdomen, and the way they’re curled together is so cozy she could lie here forever. She would if there wasn’t a Wookie loudly banging things down the corridor.

Ben lips are on her neck and she hums, stretching out her limbs languidly. 

“I suppose we have to get up,” she says, like it’s a hardship waking up when Ben is _here_ , in her world, wrapped around her like this. Like there isn’t sunlight flowing through her veins this morning, the fog she’s been moving through evaporating in his presence.

He grunts into her hair, and that’s how she first learns Ben is not a morning person.

Chewie’s in a better mood when they’ve both used the refresher, having breakfast cooking by the time they’re ready for the day.

_“Does this at least mean we’re leaving?”_ he asks.

“Sure,” Rey replies confidently. “We’ve got what we came here for.”

Ben’s hair is damp again, and she’s not going to touch it in front of Chewie, but when they’re alone again she will. She very much will.

_“Where to?”_

She shrugs. “Somewhere…green.”

“I think I know the place,” Ben says. 

* * *

It’s green, alright. A forested jewel in the Outer Rim without the jungle humidity of Ajan Kloss, and only a few scattered villages. Rivers, lakes, and waterfalls break up the canopy, and the only sand to be found is at the edge of the sea.

Rey’s not sure how Ben even know it exists until he takes her to an old hut perched on a cliff, with breathtaking views across the forest. 

“This planet was a potential Rebel base that my—that Han used a few times when he needed to lie low.”

Chewie takes a shuttle to the nearest space port, telling them he’s taking a vacation, and they collect supplies from the closest village: meat, spices, bread. The recent war didn’t make it this far except in rumor, and nobody here has ever heard of Kylo Ren. They definitely wouldn’t mistake the boy who stoops to try and hide his height for that fearsome creature even if they had.

There’s not much to the hut. A living space with a stove which always serves to heat the entire dwelling, a refresher, and one bedroom. It’s more room than Rey has ever had to herself, even if Ben takes up an awful lot of it just by existing. They bring in blankets from the Falcon to make the bed with, and fire up an old cleaning droid which is idling in a closet.

If he thinks they’re waiting until darkness falls to use the bed, he’s mistaken. Once she’s familiarized herself with their new place, she’s pulling him into the bedroom. The drapes are open, sunlight spilling all around them, as she tugs the necklace off and hangs it on the bedpost. Her hair’s already loose—something she knows he appreciates, the way his fingers have been making their way into it all day.

She has to stand on tiptoe to kiss him, and he helps her by looping an arm around her waist, pulling her off her feet completely to be pinned against him. This easy display of strength—he’s only holding her up with one arm, and it’s effortless—has her gasping into his mouth, the eagerness she felt low in her belly bursting into something fiercer, hotter.

She wriggles against him as they kiss, ends up tumbling them down onto the bed. They’re still learning how to do this, so sometimes teeth clash and elbows end up in the wrong place in their eagerness. Clothes come off quickly, her freckled skin the color and warmth of sand against his, which shines white like a moon. 

He’s all soft words and reverent glances. It should make her squirm, but there’s a part of her which basks in the attention, at this proof that she means something to someone. He has constellations mapped across him and she traces them with her fingers, before he rolls her under him to make it stop; she tucks the knowledge that he’s ticklish away for later. For now she has other things to learn, and he seems to understand a bit more about the process than she does, at least.

It’s uncomfortable. There’s no way around it. Not painful, and force knows he’s being as gentle as he can be, but on the other hand he’s so kriffing big and so lost in his own head that she’s alone with the discomfort. He almost looks like he’s in a pain of his own, so she focuses on his eyes, wide pools of amber in the afternoon light, and lets herself sink in. It’s harder to find the border between the two of them these days anyway, easy to float into his side of things.

But oh. He’s not in pain _at all_. The only discomfort he’s feeling is holding himself back—the mental effort of not giving in, not letting all the sensation get the better of him this soon. He doesn’t want to let her down, and his thoughts echo with her name, a breathless mantra to keep him focused, to remind himself this is about more than what he wants, but Rey can feel her body wrapped around his. She’s surprisingly soft for all her worn edges and sinew, or at least that’s the way she feels to him. It’s easier this way, to sink back into the pillow and smile up at him encouragingly.

Things will get better for her. She can let this time be for him.

Except she forgot that when she’s in his head, she’s opening herself up to him in turn. He’s caught onto the snatches of her ragged thoughts and freezes above her, withdrawing.

“I’m hurting you!” It’s almost an accusation, one aimed at himself as much as anything, and not even the way she’s got her limbs wrapped around his body can keep him anchored to her.

“It’s nothing,” she insists. 

“Why didn’t you say?” And then she can hear the echo rattling round in his skull: _monster, monster, monster._

“Ben!” She sits up, grabs his wrist before he can roll off the bed entirely, not without taking her with him. She’s cold, without the warmth of him pressed shoulder to hip, and she misses it already. She projects that sensation to him: how much she’d liked his skin or hers. The smaller feelings which she’d latched onto, as he’d moved tentatively inside her, that meant more combined than the unease at being stretched open. “It’s nothing. I’m fine,” she insists.

Yet he’s shaking his head and won’t look her in the eye. “I won’t hurt you.”

“Maybe we’re just going a little fast.”

She has to take matters into her own hands. He’s stoked something in her that needs feeding, finding places in her body she never knew about, and to keep the feeling going she searches them for herself. It’s not the same as when he touched her, but it feels instinctual now she knows.

“Rey—what are you—”

And he can feel it through the bond. She’s not trying to tempt him, but his resistance crumbles anyway, pushing her hands away to replace them with his own, with his mouth, with his tongue.

She had no idea. She never wants him to stop.

Rey comes apart easily, stars bursting behind her eyes, a supernova blazing through her, Ben’s name in her throat. Then she guides him back above her.

It’s better this time. He thinks so too—it doesn’t last long, and she feels echoes of how it is for him when he spills over. He kisses her while their breathing slows, scattering them across all the skin he can reach, and she can feel laughter bubbling up inside her. She’s not sure why. She’s never had much cause to laugh in her life, but now it feels like happiness is trying to pour out of her body however it can.

Eventually his lips still, but only so he can cup her face with one of those ridiculously big hands and stare at her earnestly.

“I love you,” he says, then presses his trembling lips together tightly. She’s come to recognize that as a sign of nerves, though what he has to be nervous about she doesn’t know. She reached between the worlds to bring him back to life. _Of course_ she loves him too.

Still. She’s not cruel. She could never be cruel to him. “And I love you.” _Now_ she’s laughing, happiness fizzing across her tongue.

They don’t leave the bed much for some time. There’s too much to learn, too much lost time to catch up on. Even if they’re only wrapped together, drowsy and spent, swapping stories and kisses, it’s perfect.

She’s not alone anymore. She’ll never be alone anymore, the bond between them thrumming with all the life they have left to live.

* * *

In a forest, beside a meandering river, there is a clearing. Within the clearing there’s a house, a ramshackle old cottage with space to land a shuttle outside, and a shed full of half-deconstructed spaceship pieces. Behind the house, there’s a garden.

The garden is not so big, but it’s brimming with life of all kinds. Neat rows of herbs and vegetables are interspersed with laden fruit trees and flower beds bursting with color and perfume. Tip-yips wander down the paths, weaving out of the way of various sets of chubby legs which traverse the colorful stones as well.

The chubby legs belong to a cluster of children who are playing tag, the older ones leading the game, excited squeals and screams ringing through the air periodically. Beside the gate, on a brightly-painted bench, sit two observers. There’s a third inhabitant, but he sleeps in his mother’s arms, his mop of dark hair nestled under her chin. She watches the playing children alongside the little boy’s father, enjoying the opportunity to sit down before the next inevitable calamity. 

Not all of the children are their own. The eldest girl is—she’s all gangly legs, freckles and a toothy smile. There’s a smudge of grease on her nose from where she was helping her mother take apart a compressor this morning. And one of the other boys, with quiet, dark eyes and calligraphy ink on his fingers. He’s more timid that most, though he doesn’t hesitate to use the Force to levitate out of the way. The rest are the flotsam and jetsam of the galaxy, Force sensitive children without families of their own. They don’t live here all the time, but they all get the chance to visit the garden and interact with each other, giving Finn and Rose a little respite from the home for war orphans they run.

“That’s cheating!” one of the other participants yells, and Rey steels herself for the inevitable argument that’s about to break out.

“No, it isn’t,” Ami protests before her mother has to intervene. “You can do that too, we never said you couldn’t use the Force.”

This seems to open up a whole new world of possibilities. Instead of dissolving into a fight, the game becomes even more spirited. 

Beside Rey, Ben breathes a sigh of relief. He enjoys spending time with the children, but he has less patience for their squabbles than she does, preferring quieter activities instead. She settles against him, leaning into his warmth, and he shifts his arm to tug her in even closer. His contented hum thrums through her body.

Very few people know Ben Solo lives, hidden away from the galaxy in a canopy of trees. But Kylo Ren died a long time ago, among the wreckage of the failed Empire. In his place Ben does his best to shape the little ones who cross their paths, as gentle and patient as Rey could have ever hoped.

His hair has streaks of silver through it now, and he’s had as little sleep as she has since Ami was born, but they savor every moment. Teaching the children about the Force—how it weaves through all living things, even in this garden—is as good a life as any. The galaxy is still finding its feet, charting a new path that won’t lead back to war, and this is their part of it. Showing a new generation that the Force isn’t there for war, or power, or control. Being able to wield it doesn’t mean they should be given any more reverence than people with other skills, and its importance lies as much in cultivation as anything else. Planting, growing, sowing, then turning the results of that work into nourishment.

Whether they’ll succeed is another story. One that will never find its way into sacred texts, or records of any kind. A quiet life of obscurity suits them both. And Rey knows, without question, that the Force is content with that too. A balance has been struck, Skywalker and Palpatine blood merged under the name of a scoundrel who never wanted to do anything except fly. 

She’s not sure what the future holds for any of the children in this garden. All she can do is ensure that it will always be a sanctuary. A place of peace. A place of nurturing.

A place of love.


End file.
